I'm Finally in LA!

After a long and exhausting journey, I’m finally in Los Angeles! I had to wake up at 4 am to go to the airport and I arrived in LA 9 pm (12 am local time). In other words, I travelled a whole day and when I arrived, I still had a whole day left, because of the 9 hours difference.

The passport and luggage control in LA was an interesting experience…I was almost refused to get into the country. I went through an automatic passport check, stood in line forever and then I got my passport checked by an officer. However, I had a problem… I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel we’re staying at and there was no service on my phone, so I couldn’t check it. This particular officer wouldn’t let me into the U.S. if I couldn’t tell him where I was staying. I kinda panicked and didn’t know what to do, but luckily, I recognized some of the other Norwegian contestants (who had just arrived with another plane) and I was allowed to go and asked them. First challenge fixed!

However, it wasn’t exactly my lucky day… After picking up my suitcase, I had to stand in another line to get through another control. When I was standing in the line, a police dog walked past and sniffed at my bag (really, really bad luck) …challenge number two…

The officer stopped and everybody starred at me like I was a criminal… he asked me a few questions and wanted to know if I had any food in my bag. I had an apple and an avocado in my hand-luggage (didn’t know that fruit would make me a criminal, but it apparently did). He asked for my passport-control receipt and wrote something on it. When I arrived at the last control, the officer sent me to another control (advice, don’t bring fruit into the U.S…it creates too much drama). They scanned my suitcase, opened my hand luggage and took my apple and avocado. And finally, I was allowed into their beautiful country.

After that, I met my team leaders and some of the other Norwegian contestants outside of the airport and a taxi took us to the hotel. At this point, I was extremely exhausted, but I had to force myself to stay awake until the evening. We decided to unpack, go grocery storing and eat some food. And by 8 o’clock in the evening I fell asleep.

Today was my first proper day in LA and I truly love it! As a result of the weird time-zone and jetlag, I woke up pretty early and had a whole lot of time to eat breakfast and get ready…and at 9 am I met the rest of the team and we practiced for a few hours. After that, we had the rest of the day off and I went to the beach with another girl from my team. We sat on the sand, enjoyed the sun and talked while I ate a delicious burrito from a food-truck. Life is good in LA!

The actual competition starts on Monday, so we have a few days to practice and go to bootcamps before that. But I’ll keep you updated and you can follow me on Instagram (@huuscaroline) for more pictures.